Friday, January 23, 2009

This article is critical of the Obama administration for glossily fulfilling a campaign pledge to close Guantanamo Bay. But in 'fulfilling the pledge' they haven't really done what the hard core anti-war base would want them to do.

The money quote:

"So to summarize: We’d love to close Guantanamo, but we can’t right now; we’d love to transfer detainees out of Guantanamo, but other countries don’t want them; we’d love to give every detainee a civilian trial, but we don’t have enough evidence; we’d love to release the detainees we can’t charge with crimes, but our intelligence tells us they’re dangerous, so doing so would be irresponsible; and we’d love to stick to the highly civilized, detainee-friendly interrogation practices approved by the Army Field Manual, but every now and then there may be an emergency when something more severe is warranted."

So what are all the Republicans crying about? That's what I wanted Obama to do! If he's going to close Gitmo, at least we should be glad he's doing it in a way that doesn't cut against the basic philosophy of keeping the country safe. Why are Republicans criticizing the Obama administration for moderately carrying out this campaign pledge. The people who should be pissed off are the hard core anti-war hippies who have been criticizing Bush/Cheney since Sept 12 2001. They're the ones being 'betrayed' by Obama. Republicans should be happy about it. Go Obama. I honestly don't care if the detainees are held at Gitmo, Diego Garcia, Fort Leavenworth or wherever. Seriously people. Say you've got a terrorist being held at Folsom Prison. Do you really think they're going to be treated better there than they are at Gitmo? Do you think they're MORE likely to escape? Come on. Those guys would be treated worse than child molesters. Republicans should shut up and be grateful for this course of action taken by the Obama administration.

This is a story about Timothy Geithner, Obama's appointment to be Treasury Secretary. I haven't been in love with Hank Paulson. In fact I think he's a douche. But Republicans should be giving Obama all sorts of crap about this appointment. In fact Democrats should be giving Obama all sorts of crap about this. Remember during the election when Joe the Plumber was 'discredited' because he hadn't paid like $1200 in taxes? Joe the plumber was discredited because he wasn't convinced and wasn't going to vote for Obama. Timothy Geithner is going to run the IRS. Any mistake, any omission, any mis-step where he didn't pay his taxes right should be the end of it.

1 comment:

With regard to Gitmo, I think the jeering isn't because it's being closed responsibly (if at all--you already know the order's full of loopholes), but because he essentially promised to shut it down immediately. Once faced with the realities of who's in there, he's taken a much less firm approach.

From a safety standpoint, I'd prefer that he say, "Now that I have all the facts on who's in there, I'm afraid it's not reasonable to close it." However, he can't go entirely back on his promise.

The upset is less about how and what he's doing, and more about the fact that it's okay for him to do exactly what Bush was doing and the media's perfectly content with it instead of pointing out that nothing has changed.

Personally, from what I've heard of Gitmo, the living conditions are much nicer than your average U.S. prison, and I think the prison population would make short work of terrorists. Toss them in Pelican Bay and let's see how long they last.

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